Obscure II UK Review

Hydravision returns for another dose of its silly but satisfying Survival Horror game.

Once upon a time, if you were a college student, the mere act of even thinking about waggling your wand in a lady's magic cavern would pretty much guarantee a visit from your local friendly psychopath for a quick correctional course via a selection of lovingly sharpened blades of justice. Well, in movies at least. Now though, horror's all about psychological terror plus protracted torture - and the videogame genre is no exception.

In fact, the only game to revisit the heady days of teen dismemberment in an educational setting was the original Obscure - a somewhat low-key title from French developer Hydravision. It was an enjoyable if relentlessly, half-knowingly, naff take on the slasher genre which just about managed to hold its head at shoulder height with the heavyweights of the survival horror genre - thanks, in part, to its entirely co-operative two-player story mode.

All hail the omnipresent traffic cone!

Three years on, the surviving students of the first game have returned for the obligatory sequel, having left the accursed halls of Leafmore High behind for the hedonistic delights of recreational drugs and unabashed bonking at Fallcreek University. Of course, in time honoured teen horror tradition, it's not long before the past catches up with them and all hell breaks lose on campus. The moral? Drugs and sex are bad.

If that sounds like a fairly generic premise, it is. Obscure II certainly won't be winning awards for its stunning characterisations and earth-shattering plot twists - mainly because it doesn't have any. You'll spend most of your time being whisked from various survival horror staple locations - school, hospital, spooky forest and so on - eagerly awaiting the plot to kick in. You might also wonder when the scares are going to start but - spoiler! - they don't. In fact, there are so many brightly lit environments, constant atmosphere-undermining quips and daft enemies, you might as well be playing Big Ted's Adventure in Picnic Land.

This bit's good. There's a boat and everything.

That's never really a problem though, given how self-aware Obscure II is. It knows it's a cheesy horror romp and quite happily nicks entire set-pieces from classic movies of yore - there's even a chainsaw-wielding maniac in a wobbly shack, for goodness sake. Chuck in some hilarious translation clangers - making Resi's "master of unlocking" sound positively Shakespearian - and voice acting not so much phoned in as scrawled in crayon on a Post-it, then mailed Second Class, and there's something almost irresistible about Obscure II's daffy charm.

Luckily though, there's more to recommend than vague ineptness: Much like the first game, Obscure II's wild card is its co-operative mechanics. Each of the game's six characters has their own unique 'abilities' and Hydravision has managed to fashion some incredibly nifty puzzles around each. In the roster, you've access to ledge-shimmying acrobatics, lock picking, cryptology, hacking, super-strength and, er, ferocious sucking. Abilities play out as an entertaining mini-game when called upon - whether it's some minor QTE action when clambering along high ledges or jigsaw-style evidence reconstruction - and offer a nice change of pace from the more prominent running around and shooting angry pork chops in the face.